Sunday, December 31, 2006

News The Californianwrites of short lived glory and suspicion. Landis says:

"Whether you think I'm innocent or guilty you have to agree that taking an entire year out of someone's life to find out is absurd."

Sister article from the North County Times (same web site as the Californian) makes it the top sports story of the area for the year.Orange County Register ties it into a roundup of the "Red, White, and Blues"

For Tour de France winner Floyd Landis: Write a book of 101 excuses for athletes to use when they fail drug tests and market your own brand of whiskey to go with it.

The Morning Star reprises the Landis scandal, but makes no wishes for FL in the New Year:

At least Roethlisberger admitted he was a fool. Cyclist Floyd Landis, after found to have unusual testosterone ratios in his blood after winning the Tour de France, claimed he was innocent. His set of excuses included a suggestion that a bottle of whisky somehow might have been the culprit.

Reuters UK notes that big name drug positives in 2006 test the credibility of sports:

Even though their events have long been associated with performance-enhancing drugs, the shock and disappointment at the downfall of Justin Gatlin and Floyd Landis reverberated around the sporting world, not least because both had appeared to herald a new era.

4. Landis' Tour win disputed On July 23, Floyd Landis, raised in a rural Mennonite community in Pennsylvania, won the Tour de France.

Within two weeks, his second doping sample tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone, confirming the positive result that arrived after a Stage 17 performance in the Alps that essentially put Landis in prime position to win.

Landis has yet to be stripped officially of the Tour title, but the controversy itself has eroded even more of the sport's credibility--nine riders were booted from the Tour just before it started for being involved in a doping scandal in Spain. They included high-profile Tour favorites Jan Ullrich of Germany and Ivan Basso of Italy.

At the time of my visit, bicyclist Floyd Landis had lost his Tour de France title for testing for abnormally high levels of testosterone. He blamed the results on drinking Jack Daniel's the night before the race.

So I asked Goose if Jack Daniel's can increase your testosterone level.

It was clear he'd never been asked this question before. "It will if you drink just enough of it," he quipped. "If you drink too much of it, you'll go south. But I ain't no doctor."

We embraced Lancaster's Floyd Landis as a local hero, and he miraculously won the Tour de France. Never mind his not being really local - we needed a winner. Then he tested positive for a banned substance, and our hands were slapped again for having the nerve to raise them in triumph.

Detroit Free Press goes ironic:

Hero or villain?On July 23, American Floyd Landis -- suffering from an arthritic hip that was later replaced -- became a storybook successor to Lance Armstrong as he won the Tour de France after staging a tremendous comeback in the Alps.

But wait, there's more ...

Four days later, it was revealed Landis had tested positive for high levels of testosterone after Stage 17, when he began that big comeback. He claimed innocence and began coming up with multiple reasons for the positive result.

Landis begins his defense against the charges next month, and it is notable that a Spanish cyclist recently won a similar appeal against the same lab.

Tour de farceAfter two urine samples showed synthetic testosterone in cyclist Floyd Landis’ system, the Tour de France winner insisted that high levels of the chemical — nearly triple the norm — were “produced by my own organism” or perhaps concocted by conspirators.

Of course, David Letterman weighed in with his Top 10 Floyd Landis Excuses, including: “Frankly, I’d rather be a disgrace than a loser.”

Landis’ championship ride into Paris on July 23 is now up to courts to decide.

Neurophilosophy notes PurePedantry's coverage of Landis as candidate for top science blogging of the year. Unfortunately, PP's post has not been updated at all in the months that have followed, particularly once the lab pack was released and other analysis done of the testing. Just about the last comment is from someone who was drug tested at work, and wondering about his 16:1 ratio.

1 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Has there been any further info regarding the individual in the comments at PP who tested 14.9:1 at a work related drug test? Enough time has passed that there ought to be results from the additional testing he mentioned in his post there. Perhaps someone can track him down and get an update, along with permission to share it here?

Total Poindexter Website Prize: to the fabulous geniuses over at trustbutverify, who not only are perhaps the most impassioned defenders of Floyd Landis' virtue beyond only the boy himself, but actually seem to understand the detailed scientific arguments they put out that the rest of us (well, me) are too stupid to even coherently summarize. Floyd, you better be innocent, or you owe these folks a *major* freakin' apology! (racejunkie)

"Who does awards for blogs? I sense a nomination is in order." (Carlton Reid, of BikeBiz)

"Hands-down champion of full-and I mean full-coverage of this hearing is the blog Trust But Verify. You'll have to have excellent background knowledge of the issues, and wade through page after page of detail to get to anything interesting, but it's raw and unfiltered and all there. The guy who runs the site, a cycling fan from Northern California, began casually providing a clearinghouse for Landis case news nearly 10 months ago, and now he has the haunted look of a man whose life has been hijacked and wants it back. (Loren Mooney, co-author of Positively False, at Bicycling)

"if you want the latest news on the Floyd Landis case, Trust but Verify is the go-to site. The author is biased in favor of Floyd (so am I) but the reporting is neutral and comprehensive." (12string musings)

About Me

About Us (Admissions)

TBV is personally biased towards Floyd. I think it'll be a better world if he proves his innocence, and some inquisitors meet their own just ends. Interspersed between daily link roundups are pieces of commentary slanted towards understanding what will prove innocence in the discipline proceeding, and what will rehabilitate his reputation in the public eye. Make of them what you will. Agreement with me is not required, though I am right.